Sounds of the Past
by Corilyn Winchester
Summary: After an explosion in the basement of a warehouse during a fight, Tony Stark must learn to cope with something that one of the other Avengers is already hiding. Can Iron Man fix it, or will he be kicked off the team for the result? Contains: Deaf!Clint,one sided BlackHawk(Clintasha). Please R/R. Previously on ao3. Rated T for Tony and Clint's vocabulary.


Pre-note/disclaimer: Helllooooooo, this is your author speaking. Please fasten all seat belts and put your trays in the upright position because this is about to get fluffy in places. Pure unedited, fluff as far as the end goes. There is some very one sided Clintasha (BlackHawk). You have been warned.

I do not own, so do not sue.

Also, this story was on AO3, it no longer is as of yesterday, monday the 1st. All of my Avengers and Star Trek fic will now be on this account.

Which brings me to my second point: I will not be telling you guys my archive name, if you guess correectly however, i will write you any fic in any of my fandoms that you want. Just PM the guess to me.

There is bad medical stuff, quiet frankily i'm in college and barely have the time to write let alone research my medical facts.

...

Tony Stark could pull off any look, except this one. He's in a hospital bed, bruised battered and slightly singed.  
I knew this was a bad idea the moment I thought of it, but then again, someone had done it for me, so I should pass on the gesture. I can still remember the words spelled out so carefully in his small messy script on the tablet in the room. Coulson had been my handler for not even a year at that point, but I was as new as him, and our partnership worked.  
"You know what this means?" My voice sounds weird, I switched my aids to the older visible model ones that I'd only used for about two weeks right after I blew my hearing. Apparently they distort sound more than I'm used to with the better ones I have translates and the words appear on the hologram coming from his phone.  
" Means I'm done. Kicked out of the team, SHEILD will send me away to some lab to make the stuff for the next Avenger." His voice is well regulated and I'm only slightly jealous that he's already got that down. Although it shouldn't surprise me with how often he manages to temporarily deafen himself while in the lab. Except this time it's permanent.  
"No.I means you put these in and get back to work." I set the little black box on the tray and turn, just slowly enough that I'm sure he sees the aid in my right ear before I walk away.  
Its almost the same as the conversation nearly six years ago now, except I have experience in the area, I'm not just trying to get my guy back in the field. The other difference is that Coulson wasn't there when I blew mine, but I was there when Stark did his. I can only wonder if I had the same look on my face, the pure terror at hearing nothing but an incessant buzz and feeling the blood trickle out of a place it's not supposed too. I wonder if I screamed. He did. I remember that it hurt but that's about it.  
I'm thinking about where I left my spare good ones when I almost run into Rogers, apparently he thought it would be good to visit Stark.  
"Oh, hello Clint. How are you doing?" I was next to the explosion, closer than he was actually, but you can't deafen a deaf guy.  
" Better than him. I'm grounded for a month though." Broken wrists are bitches. One fractured left hand and some bruises to go with the concussion please.  
"I'm sorry to hear that. Feel better soon." And then he's gone And I'm tearing the bulky semi-skin colored hooks from my ears. Luckily Rogers is still iffy with tech so he wouldn't make a connection. I can deal with silence for awhile.

Its three days later when I talk to Stark again. He's wearing the aids, probably just for cleared to put them in for the first time judging by the look of discomfort on his face. His sound is probably too high, or the pitch is off.  
"You followed to my advice." I've got my good ones in again, and I feel normal.  
" Didn't have much of a choice." Yes you do. Silence or sound.  
" Wouldn't go as far as to say that. How the hearing aids working for you?"  
"Everything is muffled yet it's loud." At least your not dealing with archaic tech that chafes your head.  
"Adjust the pitch."  
"How the fuck do you know?" He didn't notice. How the hell didn't he notice.  
"Just try it." So he does and the look on his face relaxes.  
"Well damn."  
" See?" It had been the hardest part to figure out.  
"What's it even matter to you? Not like I'm your team mate anymore."  
"Stark, you listen close because I'm only going to say this once. You are not damaged goods now. You are still iron man and yes, you have a disability, do fricking hoo. That does not make you any less useful than any member of the team. So get back to work. " Pissed would be an understatement of how I feel." I'll see you around." He's a self serving jackass. I'd taken the news much better.  
"Wait. Clint, why do you care?" He's scared. That makes sense.  
"Look. What happened happened. Its not the end of you, hell, you might even be better off now. " I can see in his eyes that he's still not convinced.  
"Oh my God. You were closer to the blast. Are you? Did it..." Oh. That was unexpected.  
"Nothing new to me." Stark I swear to God if you make me say it out loud I'll slit your throat and make it look like an accident.  
So okay,maybe I am still touchy about it.  
"Wait you're ...?" God Damnit yes. " And they kept you around?"  
"Obviously."  
"Were you born that way or?" I honestly did not expect that question from Tony Stark.  
"No. I stood too close to a sonic arrow. Apparently the warnings on those were real." The official story is explosion, but my file doesn't say anything about it. Doesn't even mention the hearing loss.  
"Damn." Yup.  
"So, did they tell you your percentages yet, or are they waiting?" _How deaf are you Tony?_  
"Uh, 50% left remaining in my right and 30% in my left." Lucky bastard. " what about you?"  
"80 and 95 gone." It had been bad.  
"That's, wow. I thought this was bad, but that's...that's almost completely gone." Yep, take out the aids and I'm in silence. Although sometimes that's what I need.  
"Mmhmm. You'll probably be able to hear someone if they're close. Explosions,anything loud." I know sign language and I'm great at lip reading. Coulson made me learn before he'd put me back on full op duty .SHIELD is going to be pissed that they can't use the schematics from mine to make his.

" Well that's reassuring. So um, weird question." Joy. "Would you mind if I tried to make the uh, the hearing aids better. You know waterproof, EMP resistant, some other stuff. I'll make a set for you if you want."  
"Yeah. You should. The R&amp;D ones suck ass, but theirs are the best out there right now." I can't tell where sounds come from. Left is up and right is left and its very confusing. I can't shower with them in and I stand to close to some transmitters they like to short out. They also explode sometimes. "I need the control on my bow though. Need to be able to adjust them whenever." R&amp;D had gotten so pissed at that request.  
"Yeah, I don't see why not. I actually have wanted to get my hands on that thing since New York, I have ideas."  
"No Sonics." Not going to do that to another innocent bystander like Lucky Moore. She'd been behind the wave, but still got the effects of the blast.  
"Wasn't even thinking about that." He looks more relaxed now, more at ease with the situation. "So how long have I got before you start calling me a lazy sissy for not being back in the field?"  
"Took me 3 weeks, I'll give you 2."  
"That's unfair."  
"One, worse damage. Two, I had to wait for R&amp;D to make a pair that could transmit communication. You don't have to deal with hours of radio static testing."  
"Ew, gross." Painful too, I'd left the center everyday with a raging headache that wasn't due to the aftereffects of the concussion.  
"Well I'm leaving." I'm turning to leave again when I think of something else. " Don't let anyone know about me okay? You and Tasha are the only ones." He nods and I slid out the door.

"So if I lose the chip the comm will be a readout?" It took Stark 24 hours to fix a problem that had been around for 6 years.  
"It should be an automatic switch. If the chip is out of range it will start the readout so you can tell what's going on. I also installed a camera on the quiver so if your sound goes down you can see behind You. Just press the button on the inside of the glasses and it'll popup in the corner of the lense. Just move your eyes around to control it." I pick up the glasses and look at them. They look exactly like they did before except for the addition of a small screw looking button on the inside of the left lense on the frame.  
" And the chips go on the inside of my ears?" They were the size of tacks and sticky on one side.  
"Yeah. Shouldn't have any issues once you get them adjusted." He hands me the 2 shiny slivers. " As long as they don't fall out, which isn't likely." I've never had aids that didn't bug me when i was alseep. Not really supposed to leave them in for that long anyways, irritates your ear. If these could stay in then it wouldn't be an issue. "Oh, be careful around high frequency sound waves, still haven't figured out the interference issue yet." I noticed then that i couldn't see anything in his ears. He either wasn't wearing them or it was that well concealed.

" Are you testing these on me before you try them?" Jackass.

"No. Got mine all figured out last night. They're smaller than yours. If you look one of your is actually slightly larger than the other, the size is dependent on the amplification. So mine are about half the size of yours. Bigger goes in the worse one."

"Well, here goes then." Okay, yeah bad pun, but come on, it was wide open and are you telling me it wasn't at least a little bit funny.

I take the old aids out of my ears and the world plunges into four senses again. I don't quite understand why people find this so hard to deal with, I kind of like the calm sometimes, and it lets me see even better because there's no sounds to distract me. The slightly larger one goes in my right ear, the disk shaped chip fits into the hole perfectly and sticks to the wall of my ear. I'm willing to bet that if i looked from a certain angle i'd be able to see it, but not if i was straight on or from the side. I repeat the process with the left ear and give Stark a thumbs up. I hate talking when i can't hear.

_Three, two, one_. I see him mouth and then theres the click of the devices turning on and sound floods me. "Testing HA CB1." his voice sounds so weird. Almost solid, and like he's closer than i feel like he should be.

"What does HA CB1 mean?" I sound weird. Weirder than the visible set. My voice is deeper and kinda scratchy. It reverberates through me.  
"Guess that means they're on." He tosses the remote at me and i start messing with the filters. " HA CB1 is the product number. Hearing Aid:Clint Barton: Version one." Well at least his numbering system makes sense.

"You're loud." I have the volume turned down almost all the way it still sounds like he's right next to me. "I don't like this." I felt claustrophobic. And I like tight spaces.

"The sensors are reading normal input. Maybe you just aren't used to hearing normal again yet. I feel great. Everything sounds clear to me, and I only lost mine last week." Six years without hearing a voice correctly could be the difference. "Whats something that you remember hearing really clearly before you blew yourself up?" I didn't do it on purpose.

"Tasha's voice." Yeah. I like her alot, but her voice was also the last thing I heard unaided. That pun was yelling into my comm that i shouldn't do it. One hell of a told you so scene after.

"Okay. Easy to find. Let's go get her." My head feels full and i'm half tempted to turn the aids off.

"I'd rather not." She's in one of her moods. She just got back from a mission that i was supposed to go on with her but being grounded until my hand healed had put her with a rookie that got on her last nerve within two minutes of meeting him. I was keeping my distance.

"Clint. I'm going to prove this one way or another. This level of sound is how 100% working ears would sound, with the exception of the directory errors, I'm working on that." Six years. Six long years since I'd heard true sound. Not scratched, distant or muted. Pure, true, years since I've heard the yelled "don't you dare do it Barton." Even though I still remember exactly how it sounded.

"Fine. But she starts throwing punches and you are on your own."

"Wonderful. Your girlfriend scares me." I wish.

"She's not my girlfriend. Its not like that." I wish it was.

"Riiiiiggghhtt."

….

"Tasha, you want to spar?" I still sound weird to myself.

"Sure not like you're much of a threat though with a pound of fiberglass on that hand." OhMyGod. Its HER. I might have laughed slightly hysterically at this point, not gonna lie. "Whats wrong?"

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing." Her voice was so smooth, the lilt at the end, and perfectness of it all was overwhelming. There's no pixelization, no underlying static.

"Okay, now you're freaking me out."

"I fixed his hearing aids." Well yes Tony why not announce that to anyone that might be in the gym?

"You broke them again? When?" Not broken, just fixed.

"I didn't. He improved them. You sound amazing." Her eyes soften minutely, i'm fairly sure no one else would notice.

"So this right now, me saying this sounds right?" Dear God yes.

"Sounds like before." Six years since i heard her voice so clear. Six goddamn years, most of which I didn't even know what I was missing.

So yes, I love her even if she doesn't reciprocate.

"Like last week before or before you pulled that damn stunt in Taiwan?" That's where it happened. That's where I last heard the angry words yelled into my comm, her accent coming out stronger then, both in frustration and I think worry.

"Before Taiwan." ' .that. .like. . her voice is music deal with it.

"Stark, you have literally been back in the building for less than 48 hours, how did you pull this off?"

"There's a reason tech is my job on this team."

...

Post-note: This was originally intended as a fic about Tony and his growth. Then Clint Barton had to show up and ruin it all. But thats okay, i like the feathery asshole.

Please review if you have time, i know that my grammar and punctuation isn't always the best, but i try to make the dialog sound like things people would actually say.


End file.
